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Celebrating 25 Years of Entrepreneurship

Jeremy Noonan started his path
towards entrepreneurship 20 years ago cleaning cars as part of the Young
Millionaires program. Now he owns two technology companies in the Charlottetown
area.

Jeremy Noonan was a 10-year-old
kid from Kinkora when his entrepreneurial spirit was kindled.

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It started with
potatoes.

One of his
classmates had joined the Young Millionaires program in Bedeque and had started
a small business selling bags of spuds at a roadside stand.

“I kind of got
thinking, ‘Well jeez, I would kind of like to have my own business too,’” he
recalled.

Noonan joined
the Young Millionaires and started a business cleaning cars, something he’d
been doing anyway to help earn his allowance.

“You know what?
I actually washed a lot of vehicles,” he laughed.

“Over a period
of a couple of years … I probably did 10-a-month anyway.”

Now, at
30-years-old, Noonan’s business interests have taken a slightly more high-tech
turn. He is the owner and co-owner of two technology based businesses in the
Charlottetown area. JNC Tech makes custom software applications for large
businesses and Compass Aquaculture specializes in mussel and oyster farm
management software.

Noonan credits
the Young Millionaires program with helping him get a leg-up on the skills
essential to being a business owner.

“It definitely
helped a young me gain interest in the idea of running your own business,” he
said.

Since its
creation in 1992 the Young Millionaires program has introduced more than 2,000
students to the realities, good and bad, of running a business.

Open to
children from eight to 16, Young Millionaires is funded by Innovation P.E.I.
and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.

The program is
introduced through the school system though it continues into the summer.

Participants
present business ideas to the organization and if approved, they get up to $100
towards start-up costs.